Bathroom Progress

Let me remind you of the "before".

A broken, not connected shower head, baby blue tiles, a flickering lamp precariously balanced on top of a blue cabinet, and a green floor. An altogether dreary feeling. I'm not even going to go into how the sink is attached, nor the angle at which it droops.

I knew that I had to do something about all that, even if it was temporary until I saved enough money for a total gutted renovation. The first of all, the bigger shower head had to go. It wasn't even connected to the water!

Second, the lamp and the cabinet had to be replaced, and the tiles covered. I've been trying to buy a 1940-s cabinet from Blocket, but I've always been too late contacting the seller.

So I changed track and bought a simple mirror instead. It's not set up yet, because I need to find a suitable lamp first, and some storage to put all the stuff in the cabinet into.

That leaves the tiles. I had vaguely thought about some tile stickers, but I found only ugly pictures or patterns, or just single colour ones. Not even white or black. I put that idea on the back burner while I concentrated on finding the bigger pieces.

Until a friend suggested we go shopping in Lagerhaus since we were in the vicinity anyway. As soon as I spotted their wall of tile stickers, I knew that this was the right place. They had even black and white stickers, but what caught my eye were stickers with black and white triangles. Perfect!

I immediately bought two packets (10 stickers per packet), thinking that it should be enough. However, I had underestimated the size of my bathroom and 20 was not enough to go all the way around. Back I went and bought two more packets. One to cover the rest of the currently visible tiles, and one to cover tiles behind the cabinet, plus spares.

Much better, isn't it? It's so much fresher, and crisper now. It's going to be so much better once the cabinet and lamp are gone too. I cut the stickers to size where the partial tiles in the corners are. The pattern is a bit uneven, but even so, it's miles better than before.

The other side was a bit fiddly to get the stickers under the towel rack. First I cut templates for the rack attachment points, then cut the sticker. Getting all straight and fitting took a few tries. It's not perfect, but you have to look really closely to see the wrinkles, and the towels cover much of it anyway.

I hung a couple candle lanterns where the broken shower head used to be. Due to the lamp situation (exposed wiring), I'm not taking standing showers anyway, only baths, so I might as well make it pretty.

Altogether, the changes so far have not been anything major, but the bathroom already looks so much better than it did before. It's going to be nice once I'm done with the short term goals, and awesome after the long term goals have been met.

Short term goals:

1. Remove the broken shower head.
2. Remove the broken toilet paper roll holder.
3. Remove the curtain rod.
4. Remove the lamp.
5. Remove the cabinet.
6. Put stickers on the blue tiles.
7. Fill in all the random holes with silicone.
8. Get a new toilet paper roll holder.
9. Get a new hook rail.
10. Find a new lamp and put it up.
11. Find a new mirror and put it up.
12. Get a new storage cabinet.
13. Get a new cat box and move it to the hall.
14. Reduce the cacophony of colours.
15. Make a new rug.
16. Paint the ceiling white.
17. Decorate with candles and possibly an air plant.

Long term goals:

1. Rip out and renovate everything from the floor to the ceiling. The moisture barrier has been compromised, so it's best to gut and rebuild properly.